1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a neural electronic interface (NEI) device for motor and sensory controls of a human body, and more particularly, to a NEI device into which wireless technology, a smart micro-sensor, a nano probe pin device (PPD), etc. are integrated and which is implanted into a brain of a patient having motor and sensory problems in order to monitor activities of a cerebral nerve or stimulate the cranial nerve so as to normalize motor and sensory functions of the patient.
2. Background Art
People are exposed to accidents or diseases that may result in them losing the ability to function or move. There are limits to curing such patients in medical science. Medical and biological engineering in which an engineering field is grafted into a medical field has been developed in order to overcome the above-described limits. Thus, many areas of a health management system have been changed.
For example, cardiac pacemakers and defibrillators have saved lives of hundreds of people and cured heart diseases. Also, surgeons implant deep brain stimulation (DBS) devices into brains of patients to control abnormal brain functions of the patients using techniques of cardiac pacemakers.
Abnormal physical actions or mental disorders derive from abnormal functions of brains such as Parkinson's disease or an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Parkinson's disease is a chronic degenerative disease whose main symptoms are shivering of hands and feet, slow actions, and hardening of muscles.
Neurosurgeons use DBS devices to cure health problems such as Parkinson's disease, OCD, and hypochondria. Such a DBS device applies current pulses to a cerebral nerve through electrodes, which are implanted into the cerebral nerve, in order to stop shivering, which is a main symptom of a disease, and relax stooped muscles.
A method using a DBS is a surgical method for curing an OCD and is effective in curing Parkinson's disease.
Operations using DBS devices have been performed since Alim-Louis Benabid in the Grenoble University Hospital of France reported on 80 or more Parkinson's disease patients in 1993. Thus, about thirty thousand similar operations have been very successfully performed throughout the world.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional DBS device which is implanted into a human body. As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional DBS device includes an electrode needle 546 and a power supply unit 560. The electrode needle 546 is implanted into a position of a cerebral nerve to provide an electric stimulation to the cerebral nerve so as to restore an abnormal function of a brain to a normal state. The power supply unit 560 is connected to the electrode needle 546 through an electric wire 550 to supply power to the electrode needle 546.
The DBS device having the above-described structure is prominently effective in curing a Parkinson's disease or an OCD. Also, the DBS device sews the power supply unit 560 having a power source such as a battery into abdomen or thorax and is turned on or off by remote control using a skin. Thus, the DBS is clinically simply used.
However, a process of implanting an electrode, which inhibits or stimulates a predetermined part of a cerebral nerve, into a deep part of a brain is required to normalize a function of the brain of a patient so as to adopt the DBS device. Also, when the DBS device uses an electric wire in a human body to supply power, transmit data, and program software, a plurality of problems occur.
In other words, since the implantation of the power source or the electric wire into a body of a patient is complicated, the DBS device provides the inconvenience to the patient. Also, if the electric wire 550 installed underneath a skin of the patient short-circuits or power of the battery installed in the abdomen or thorax is consumed, a surgical operation is repeatedly performed to replace or repair a corresponding part.
An inexpensive electroencephalogram (EEG) represents common electric activities of millions of nerves distributed in a wide area of the cerebral cortex but does not supply a time-varying activity control signal, which is required for a specific part of a human body, in real time. In other words, brain activities must be observed and cured in an accurate problematic position in order to cure brain dysfunctions which are generally developed in patients. However, a device for solving this problem has not been developed.